April 28, 2008 by Naomi.

As one may have noted, very little that you get in Chile is good value for money (and for this reason it’s often skipped by the budget-seeking traveller). After paying over the odds for scrimping hotels and laundry (never expect enough bogroll or towels, and always expect clothes back still dirty or damp), feeling quite indignant at having tips added onto the bill for us and being charged more than we were quoted, we were very pleasantly surprised by our overnight bus service to Santiago with TurBus. For US$40 each (still pricey by South American standards), we got a camabus, theoretically a bed, but literally a very comfy chair that reclines all the way back. The only disadvantage to this is that you have someone stranger’s bottom and feet right underneath you - luckily smell issues did not affect this journey! Our attendant was extremely attentive and professional, so much so that, on delivering our bedding he actually tucked us in and plumped the pillows behind our heads. Not only this, he made sure the loo was clean all night. N was also particularly impressed with the ingenious toilet seat fitted with a spring so you have to hold it down if you want to use it, therefore preventing the standing sex from making the usual filthy mess. For this Chile gets at least two gold stars for giving some consideration to ladies’ comfort in the powder room! And we wait patiently for the day when they are introduced back home in Spain, where they are most desperately needed.

As we’d splashed out on our busride, Paul thought it would be a good idea to get on the metro to our hotel. Lovely idea in theory but extremely complicated at 8:15 am in the morning, when most of Santiago is heading to work. The crowds on the platform were five people thick and as each jam-packed train went by there was no sign of the crowd getting thinner. So as we were in no hurry we perched patiently on our rucksacks until 9am when we could comfortably board a train with our rucksacks.

We settled comfortably into yet another very well-chosen neighbourhood: Barrio Lastarria just next to the city centre. Santiago has lots to offer, including lots of hills and parks to climb up and around (or ride up in the funicular), shops, a massive market where you can indulge in all sorts of seafood, a fair few good bars and of course a whopping dose of smog. The Andes hug the edge city but you’ll be very lucky to get an outline of them through the thick yellow fog from the top of Cerro Lucía. It would be unfair not to mention Barrio Bellavista, Santiago’s answer to Palermo, with a huge range of bars and restaurants to suit all budgets and tastes, and Barrio Brasil, another quaint neighbourhood where we enjoyed a fantastic meal at the elegantly-named La Vaca Gorda (The Fat Cow).

The highlight of our trip in Santiago, however, was our visit to the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino (Pre-Colombian Art Museum), where we were given our first glimpse of some Pre-Incan mummies, which are on permanent exhibition among various other artefacts, pottery and clothes. The temporary exhibition ‘Sex and Death in Pre-Incan Art’ (or something like that), however, was not for the prudish or the light-hearted. On display were hundreds of pre-Incan figurines in the throes of various sexual acts (leaving little to the imagination). According to the accompanying theories, these took place between men and women, some dead, some alive, to help their ruler make it to the world of the dead. Therefore, and thankfully, these were not daily rituals. Us visitors where somewhat taken aback when a German man came storming through the exhibition shouting his wife’s name (who was obviously intrigued by the whole thing), found her, grabbed her and dragged her out of the exhibition in a rather humiliating episode.

We made a one-night side trip to Valparaiso, not quite the place now that is so romanticised in Isabel Allende’s novels, but certainly one of the most photogenic cities we’ve visited, despite the rather evident poverty. The whole city is sprawled over several hills, and it’s highly recommended to stay on one of the ‘cerros’ (hills) where you’re pretty much guaranteed excellent views over this colourful coastal city from your room.

After our various enjoyable shenanigans around these two cities, it was time to head further north to Arica (Chile’s northern most town, on the coast). Like Santiago, dry and dusty Arica boasts an excellent Museo Arqueologico, where we got our second taste of the many ancient mummies that the area is becoming famous for. Unfortunately, we hit the place at the same time as a boatload of cruiseship tourists, and were quite surprised at their selfish insistence on flash-photographing these very well-preserved mummies, despite the blatant signs stating that this was actually forbidden. The local church is also a must see, especially as it was designed by Eiffel and therefore made of metal, and brought over from Europe in pieces to put back together again - all very reminiscent of our visit to Santa Rosalia in the Baja Peninsula (Mexico), most famous on this blog for its cockroaches!

The next day we boarded the international cross-border express to Tacna in Peru, which consisted of one rather squashed carriage that took 2 hours to cover 30km. Views from this humble train offered little more than desert and sand dunes, but we enjoyed the experience all the same, being an excellent introduction to Peru and the colourful town of Tacna.

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April 24, 2008 by Naomi.

We finally made it over the border once again, but not without the usual extremely thorough and painstaking search of luggage for fruit and veg. While we had to chuck out the best part of our lunch (ham, pizza and bread are not allowed either), one poor woman was fined for having ’smuggled’ some wooden candles.

Our arrival in Villarica was marked by ghastly grey weather, but we had a very warm welcome at Torre Suiza, owned by a Swiss couple who had travelled the world on bicycles and all of a sudden decided they’d had enough on arrival in Villarica. We’d planned to do a 3-4 day cycling tour of the Chilean side of the lake district, but N’s cold hadn’t shifted so we kitted Paul out with one of Torre Suiza’s rental bikes and a pair of panniers. While P set off along the long straight and easy road for the lakes, N followed on the bus.

It was an easy day from Villarica to Panguipulli, almost beating the bus and interrupted only by the odd passing car stopping to offer accommodation in the next town and a few toothless locals telling P it was all downhill (as usual, utterly inaccurate). Chilean maps, and, as P was to learn, Chilean signposts often convey contradictory information regarding distances. Looking at the map the next morning over breakfast, the estimated distance to Coñaripe was somewhere between 80 and 120km. 80 sounded good, 120 sounded bad, but P set off anyway and after an hour or so came across a road sign that muddied waters. It indicated it was 70km to what P estimated was the half way point. Not a good sign but no choice but to continue, so P headed down the side of Lago Panguipulli. And then the road ended. Or the paved part anyway. The next couple of hours was spent cycling over corrugated gravel. Most of which felt uphill. Feeling rather disheartened and shaken, and after a short lunch stop P headed off for more boneshaking ripio. As is almost always the way when cycling though, things are never as bad as they seem. A roadside shop appeared, as did a road sign which suddenly knocked 30km off the distance indicated on the last signpost. The road became less corrugated (though no less steep) and, after a long, long series of switchbacks up a whopping mountain, Volcán Villarica suddenly appeared smoking in the late afternoon sun with Coñaripe below, where the usual hot water, food and beer awaited P, not to mention a very sympathetic and welcoming N.

However, the Chilean transport infrastructure was not going to make this an easy day for N either, who was quite eager to get to Coñaripe as the place was surrounded by termas (volcanic spas). So she happily jumped on a bus, arrived in good time, settled into agreed hotel and set off to see about visiting a rustic volcanic spa. However, despite the very minimal distances, finding organising transport to these places was very complicated indeed. The tourist office, albeit covered in inviting photos of various spas, was not very helpful: the woman was glued to her computer and needed some prying before N could get any info out of her. Finally she directed N to a restaurant around the corner. On enquiring at this place, the ghastly man said he couldn’t possibly take her up to any of the termas for less than US$70 (35GBP), and would need a minimum of two people anyway. It was 17km away. N was quite disappointed and disgusted. All was not lost however, as there were other minivans offering transport, but nothing was ever simple - one had to find a group of people to go with, some included entry fees into the transport costs, nobody could offer a flat straightforward fee, and no one offered anything less than US$44 (22GBP) and of course there was not one bicycle to be rented in town. Having wasted half the day trying to find some sort of transport, by 4pm it was too late anyway to make it worth anyone’s while to go anywhere. In the end, the following day, N followed the advice of the hotel receptionist who recommended getting the local bus over the hill to the Coñaripe Termas for $1, and paying an entry fee of $12. They were a bit more resorty than one expected (was hoping for something more rustic) but nonetheless a very relaxing place to spend a few hours soaking in volcanic waters, while Paul cycled his way back to Villarica. After the previous challenging day, everything seemed pretty easy for him, especially as there was no more ghastly gravel to cycle over.

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April 14, 2008 by Naomi.

Bariloche is somewhat infamous for giving refuge to Nazis on the run. Peron, Argentina’s most famous and revered ex-president, was also a national socialist and provided a safe haven for Nazis fleeing Europe after World War II, and simultaneously denied entry to any Jews fleeing the holocaust (however, this is a fact that Argentines are not particularly proud of). Bariloche, with its alpine surroundings of lakes and hills, and Swiss-style wooden houses, offered the most familiar landscape for fleeing Germans, not to mention little threat of having to pay for any nasty crimes committed under Hitler’s rule. It provided a safe haven for the likes of Aribert Heim, aka Dr Death, most famous for injecting gasoline and poisons into his victims’ hearts and timing how long it took them to die. Apparently, at 93, he’s still around somewhere but no one’s telling, including his family. The Argentine government has since repealed its Nazi-sympathetic laws and is joining in the hunt for Heim, among others.

Which is all very ironic as we found ourselves in a hostal full of Israeli clientele. Our simple room had a lovely view over the lake, and the wind constantly blasting the window. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit crappy on Sunday which was the day we’d chosen to bike the Circuito Chico, a 35km route around various lakes and the famous and expensive Hotel Llao Llao. Of course it was lovely to be back on the bikes - they were the perfect way to see Bariloche’s lush surroundings and there were precious few chaotic Argentine drivers to send us flying off the road in fear of our lives.

We picked up a car the next day (which was beautifully sunny) and made our way to Junín de los Andes, some 200km north of Bariloche. We thought this journey would only take a couple of hours but as just under half the journey was hardcore ripio (unpaved), the journey took pretty much the whole day. We were lucky enough to arrive in Junín in time to walk up to Parque Via Christi, a park which has a most original trail boasting various statues, relief sculptures and mosaics which outline the area’s Christian and Mapuche culture and history. The last few days of Christ’s life are displayed along with the complete subjugation of the Mapuche by the Spanish.

After our enlightening and informative walk around the park, we met a lovely Argentinian couple, Eduardo and Erica, from near Córdoba, who invited us to have our first real ‘máte’ experience. Máte is an inherent part of Argentinian culture, a very strong tea made with yerba máte (various herbs) that is drunk everywhere and anywhere by everyone. Copious amounts of yerba máte are poured into a wooden or leather gourd with an equal amount of sugar before adding not quite boiling water. The drinker then sucks the liquid up through a filtering metal straw. Despite not containing caffeine, the drink does have rather an odd affect, making one rather hot and sweaty and a little bit lightheaded. All in all, it was a very pleasant experience with lots of interesting conversation from football to politics.

We were disappointed not to have more time in Junín. We loved the Arabic food we had at the only restaurant in town, and our breakfast at the Hostería Chimehuin was even better, with loads left over to stuff our pockets with and keep us fed throughout the day. We visited Volcán Lanín on the Chilean border, but unfortunately did not climb it as this would have been quite a mighty job, really only for expert climbers. Our subsequent walk down to Lago Tromen nearby (we were too scared to ford the river with our tiny car, unlike everyone else), saw the camera break. After a rather hot and dusty day exploring these places we were rather taken aback when the Argentine gendarmerie stopped us at a checkpoint and insisted on comprehensively searching the car. There was a fair bit of discussion as to whether to report the clearly labelled vials of pills and bicarbonate of soda found in our luggage, but after clearly explaining what they were for (usual travelling kit of painkillers and anti-histamines etc), they let us go on our way.

Posada Quínen, our accommodation in San Martin de Los Andes the next night, went straight to the top of our best hotel list. At US$40, we got a clean, rustic-style room, a fridge, all the toiletries you could need and an almost excellent breakfast, unfortunately sullied by the return of cold Argentinian toast. Our efforts at trying to get to one of the nearby termas (volcanic spas) were frustrated by the fact that that our car was not hardcore enough to get down the extremely bad road (4×4 only) and too late to walk the rest of the way (an hour and a half). We had an excellent meal in the evening, however, and drunk rather a bit too much wine which saw N wake up the next day with the waitress’ cold in the form of a sore throat. The supposedly beautiful seven lakes route we took (again over half ripio) was very disappointing due to the not very nice weather, and we really struggled to see what the guidebooks had been raving about.

Our visit to Villa La Angostura was marred by two things. Firstly, it was Easter and the area being Argentina’s top holiday destination saw it absolutely jammers with tourists, and being a town constructed solely for tourists it is not a very inspiring place at all. Secondly, our accommodation there went straight to the bottom of our worst hotel list. We decided to go over-budget and stay in a recommended bed and breakfast called Verena’s Haus, and on making the reservation, the owner found it very difficult to trust us and confirm our reservation despite repeated attempts at giving her our credit card numbers. On arrival, we were further disappointed by the ghastly suffocating odour of musty, old flowers in our room. Luckily, we traced the horrible smell to a little ball of pot pourri hanging from the lamp, and thankfully sealed it away in an empty tin box which had curiously been left on the bed. The B&B prided itself on being a peaceful place to stay, but we were mightily unimpressed on being woken up by the owner’s whinging dog at 6am on both mornings; not only did it take ages to get the dog to shut up, but of course she set off all the other dogs in the neighbourhood, which guaranteed absolutely no opportunity at all for a lie in. We decided we ought to say something but to no avail as she insisted that her precious dog had only been making noise for 10 minutes instead of half an hour. And all this for a good bit more money than we had paid in San Martín.

One of the major tourists attractions of the area is the 13km long Quetrihue peninsula, at the tip of which is the Bosque de los Arrayanes, a type of myrtle (very rare these days). Getting to the peninsula means a boatride, a bikeride or a walk. As N’s cold had well and truly developed, we weren’t really up for major exercise, so settled on the idea of the boat trip. And being a lovely sunny Good Friday so had everyone else. After lots of confusion and running around (the tickets went very quickly) we finally found ourselves booked on a one-way boat trip to the forest, and settled with walking back the 13km. Unfortunately, the guide’s idea that the forest inspired Walt Disney’s film Bambi is not true, as he never went there, but something’s gotta bring the people, and therefore, the money in! Despite having to share the forest with hoardes of other tourists on boats from Bariloche and Angostura, the experience became a lot more pleasant when we escaped the crowds and hiked our way back and enjoyed the fresh, shaded air of the forest.

We were very relieved to leave this most touristy and noise polluted place for Bariloche, but were disappointed to find that our plan of getting back to Chile on Easter Sunday was not going to happen as every bus was completely booked up, including all the extra ones they put on, so after making some phonecalls, we hopped back into our car and headed south for El Bolsón, a town outside the national parks, but whose surroundings we thought infinitely more picturesque than the Seven Lakes district. Our highlight of the day was stopping at a little group of huts near Cholila (further south from El Bolsón), which once housed the infamous Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and their beautiful female sidekick, who came here to live from 1901 to 1905 and escape the American authorities, although not for long. They soon ran out of money and had to resort to their old ways: they held up a bank in Rio Gallegos and were once again on the run until Butch Cassidy’s death in Bolivia during a shoot out a few years later, or maybe not. According to his sister, he was home back in the States having lunch with them in 1925. Who knows?

Recommended after this visit:

Junín de los Andes: Hostería Chimehuin and restaurant on main square (will look up name)
Parque Via Christi

San Martín de los Andes:
Posada Quínen
Restaurants: Ku (in town) and Caranegra (4km north of town)

Bariloche:
The Map Room (a bar/restaurant decorated with maps of places the ex-travelling owners have visited)

Cholila: Hostería El Trebol (excellent food and better wine!)

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April 3, 2008 by Naomi.

Next stop was the tranquil and historically rich group of islands around the main one, Chiloé, to be found about two thirds of the way down Chile’s Pacific coast. After spending an uninspiring Saturday night in Puerto Montt (a major port), we headed off to Castro, the island’s main town, by bus and ferry.

The island is regarded as separate from Patagonia and prides itself on its far-fetched fairy tales about repugnant men, smelly women, unicorns and half-chicken half-worms that live in the forests and caves (for those that read Spanish, check out http://www.chiloeweb.com/chwb/chiloeisland/tem_gen_mitologia.html). There is speculation that many of its residents originated from Polynesia, due to its most renowned dish and its unusual preparation, similarities of which can be found between Chiloé and various Polynesian islands. Curanto was traditionally prepared in a hole in the ground with heated rocks, known as an ‘ollo’ and consists of potatos, onions and different shellfish all heaped on top of each other. We assume that the sausage perched on top of the curanto we enjoyed was a German contribution to the dish.

Indeed there are many European influences in Chiloen history/culture as the island provided protection from the dangers of the Pacific seas to European boats passing through their on their way north. Many objects in the local museum in Chonchi are imports from Europe in the 18th and 19th century, including a very curious set of hair-curling irons (see photo). Chiloen people also travelled and still travel extensively. Many of the Chilean ‘peones’ (servants) went off to earn money by working for estancias (ranches) throughout Argentina so that they could come back and buy land and settle with their families.

We were not entirely impressed with our hotel in Castro, which boasted a dingy, dark room with a telephone covered in chocolate, from which emerged a rather playful earwig. Our neighbour upstairs was a heavy walker, a loud TV watcher and an even louder snorer so our second day found us in a cleaner, brighter and breezier room on the second floor. We took a bus to Chonchi (20km or so south of Castro) where we got a very thorough and informative hour-long guided tour at the local museum (excellent value for 50p each), although it concentrates only on the island’s history after Europeans arrived. It seems the islanders did, however, put up quite a fight before finally becoming a part of Chile in the first part of the 19th Century.

Chiloe is actually most famed for its little wooden churches. Many tourists do their best to photograph them all. Luckily we did not have a car so we didn’t, although the local wee buses served us very well, and we managed to see a reasonable select few. Another must see are the palafitos, which are little houses on stilts to be found in the harbour at Castro. Chonchi used to have them too in but they were all destroyed by a whopping tsunami in the 1960s (Castro was rescued from this fate as the town is protected by a peninsula). We did question the wisdom of building houses at such close distance to the sea, but were assured that the quick exit for fishermen out to sea was well worth the risk.

We spent one more night this time right out in the sticks on a tiny island called Quinchao, in a town called Anchao, which was all very chilled indeed. We decided it was time to try the most typical Chilean tipple, ‘pisco sour’, which is a type of brandy mixed with egg white and we’re not sure what else, but its sickly sweet flavour wasn’t really our cup of tea so back to the usual beer we went. After that we’d had quite enough tranquility and started making plans for our trip through the Chilean and Argentine Lake districts. We headed to Puerto Varas to look into doing an 8-hour boat and bus trip across the border, but at $175 each it was a complete rip off and therefore not worth it so we paid $24 for the bus instead. We stayed far too long in Puerto Varas (two nights), a town with very strong Germanic influences in its architecture and food, and although the place we stayed in was very nice indeed, we were extremely unimpressed that the owner decided to charge us $12 more than was quoted over the phone when reserving. So despite our pleasant stay we won’t be recommending the Hotel Weisser Haus.

So it was clearly time to head back into Argentina. However, the bus journey was not going to be a simple one, what with having to go through the palarver of leaving Chile, and then entering Argentina. Once we’d done the latter, passports stamped and luggage was sniffed by dogs, no one made any move to put the luggage back onto the bus. In fact we were quite shocked when another bus came along and they started loading all the luggage from that one onto our bus! We thought there was something very sinister going on - is this what they do every time they cross borders? Was one of the buses stuffed with some kind of illegal substance? So we asked the driver and it turns out (rather boringly) one of the buses was having technical difficulties and had to go back. So back into Argentina we finally went…

Recommendations after this visit
Chiloé:
The museum at Chonchi - very informative
The restaurant where we ate curanto in Castro on the first night (but just posted Lonely Planet home and can’t remember name!), begins with S
Posada Sol y Lluvia in Anchao

Puerto Varas:
Restaurante Danes for the best empanadas (pasties) in Chile, even vegetable, which is a real find
Restaurante Mediterraneo, very pricey but fantastic grub

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